- WASHINGTON (AFP) - Caught
off-guard by a bioterrorist attack with the anthrax microbe, US authorities
are now fearful of attacks on a larger scale, potentially using a more
lethal germ.
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- With three people dead, US officials gird themselves
for a new bioterror attack, budgeting almost two billion dollars to defense
measures.
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- Already tens of thousands of people, mainly postal
workers,
have been given antibiotics as a precaution in the wake of anthrax-laden
letters sent to Florida, Washington, New York and New Jersey.
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- Post offices are now being prepared for new bioterror
attacks by mail.
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- "Anthrax has galvanized a response at all
levels,"
said Steven Block, a professor of biological sciences and applied physics
at Stanford University.
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- The country is far from being ready, however. And to
"prepare for a mass attack sounds like an impossible task," he
said.
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- For Block, the undermining nature of the attacks so far
is of great concern. "I worry less about mass casualties than about
mass disruption," he said.
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- A specialist and regular consultant to the government,
Block cites three scenarios he fears: an anthrax attack on a wider scale;
an anthrax attack using genetically modified, antibiotic-resistant
microbes;
and an attack using an infectious disease such as the highly contagious
smallpox.
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- Smallpox, in fact, is at the top of a list of threats
identified by a group of experts and doctors who met at the Center for
Civilian Biodefense Studies at John Hopkins University in Baltimore.
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- "Although smallpox has long been feared as the most
devastating of all infectious diseases, its potential for devastation today
is far greater than at any previous time," the experts wrote.
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- Keenly aware of the urgency provoked by current cases
of anthrax contamination, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy
Thompson
laid out before a congressional committee his request for a
1.5-billion-dollar
budget extension on top of what was already added after September 11
suicide
attacks with hijacked airliners.
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- Thompson is responsible for stockpiling antibiotics in
order to treat simultaneously 12 million Americans affected by a potential
germ-warfare incident, as well as for boosting vaccine production.
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- The smallpox vaccine is of particular interest at the
moment, with the goal of increasing current supply by 15 million
doses.
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- Mohammad Akhter, head of the American Public Health
Association,
says, however, that the proposal is insufficient. A billion dollars is
needed rather than the 300 million budgeted for the endeavor, Akhter
said.
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- "I know that some state and local labs are feeling
overwhelmed right now," Thompson acknowledged Tuesday to a
congressional
committee. "I understand that our local first responders are feeling
overburdened."
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- The harsh awakening to the bioterror threat for most
US officials came after a tabloid newspaper editor in Florida died of the
disease October 5. But it followed months of warnings from bioterrorism
experts.
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- A two-day exercise in June code-named "Dark
Winter,"
which simulated a bioterrorist attack on three US states, revealed that
the United States would be woefully unprepared for such an attack.
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- Copyright © 2001 AFP
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